Having seen virtually all of Jose Benazeraf's mainly excellent softcore 1960s movies and a good selection (over a dozen) of his later XXX offerings I was unprepared for this off-the-wall 1974 transitional film. This is one case where the dreaded "auteur's explanation" that accompanies so many wretched DVDs would be helpful.
I will offer my own pet theory, certainly wrong but convincing enough for me. I contend that Jose found the chance to travel to Italy and film an Italian co-production to be an irresistible opportunity to lampoon the then-current trend of Italian cinema to make sexy left-wing film tracts. Not like the Godard tracts of the '60s, but many wonderful and hokey movies that I love, like Ugo Tognazzi fighting the class struggle against Romy Schneider in LA CALIFFA or any of the Bellocchio efforts of the time.
So what we have is a mind-bending story of two very sexy teachers who speak French at an Italian college where all the kids speak Italian. Femi Benussi, incorrectly described in the idiotic IMDb synopsis as "middle-aged" (she's 29 and looking fab here guys) teaches math, while Malisa Longo is in charge of literature.
The dual language approach is the first thing that's disconcerting about ADOLESCENCE PERVERTIE. It reminded me of a typical Hollywood movie shot in Russia or some Eastern European country -all the principal cast will be speaking in English for the audience's sake while minor players (especially when chatting amongst themselves) will speak in the native language.
Though wearing huge horn-rimmed spectacles, Femi is sexy as ever and hard to buy as a math prof (I majored in math at college and no one remotely like her was on the faculty) whose breasts keep threatening to burst out of her blouse. But Benazeraf goes hog wild in having her mix sex education in with the formulas and proofs. If that isn't goofy enough, in the latter reels Femi gets militant and after attending some communist workers' rallies (real events filmed docu-style in the manner of Haskell Wexler's MEDIUM COOL), she starts mixing lefty politics with her math lessons.
All this would be crazy enough, and close to the screwball cinema of Alberto Cavallone, but Benazeraf is making a porn movie after all. So he stages several parties thrown by Femi for her students where she's aghast -practically beside herself at the naughty antics of her flock. At one such party a blonde performs an explicit blow job, not more than a minute of XXX content but pushing PERVERTIE over the line into the Adult category.
Both Femi and Longo have strong sex scenes (softcore) plus ample full frontal nudity here for the fans, who I'm sure will tolerate all the nonsensical "socially redeeming" content. Both are very beautiful and Bernard Daillencourt's cinematography is superb throughout. At times, when Femi is posed against magnificent architecture this plays like a real movie, not porn.
Obviously the exigencies of all-out hardcore filmmaking would soon swallow up Benazeraf's talent, as evidenced by the routine/filler nature of the all-sex movies of his I've seen from the late '70s and '80s. But for fans of this quirky softcore pioneer, ADOLESCENCE PERVERTIE is a must-see.
